Note 135 — Chapter XXI · RETURN FROM FORT MC KENZIE TO FORT UNION, FROM THE 14TH TO THE 29TH OF SEPTEMBER

The American buffalo or bison has been supposed to be, if not identical, very nearly akin, to the bison (wisent or zuhr), which still exists in Russia; but, from all that I know of the latter, the two animals appear to me to form two entirely different species. The American buffalo is characterized by its hair and colour. Its head is very large, and is carried low, its neck short, the withers very high, the fore part of the body colossal and broad, the back part, in proportion, small and weak, the tail rather short, very smooth, with short hairs, and a tuft at the end. During the summer months, the head, neck, shoulders, fore part of the body, and thighs, till behind the shoulder blade, are covered with longer hair, which there ceases, and is bounded by a strictly defined line from the hinder part of the body, the hair of which is short and smooth, looking, altogether, like a shorn poodle. The forehead and upper part of the head have smooth hair from twelve to eighteen inches long, and that on the fore legs is equally long, hanging down to the middle of the shins. In the winter the hair of the hinder part of the body is rather longer, with a thicker wool under it.

The prints, representing the wisent or zuhr of the Poles, which is still to be found in the forest of Bialowieza, represent that animal as very different from the American buffalo. The figure given by Bojanus (Tab. XXI.) represents the head of a bull six years old, without any long hair; and so does Tab. XX., where the hair of the forehead of the American buffalo is twelve inches long, and the beard hangs down to a great length. In these and other prints there is no long hair on the fore legs; while the tail, in Bojanus's prints, has much longer hair than that of the American animal. None of them have the long hair on the fore part of the body, nor the strictly defined limit of this longer hair.—Maximilian.